According to the State of Fashion 2020, the report jointly released by Business of Fashion (BoF) and consulting company McKinsey, the global fashion industry accounts for 20 to 35 percent of microplastic flow into the ocean, and produces 2.1 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. It is considered "extremely energy-consuming, polluting and wasteful".

Fortunately, a revolution is taking going on thanks to people's raising awareness of sustainability.

More and more fashion brands are reevaluating their priorities, offering consumers better choices and humankind a brighter future.

Sustainable material

Waving environment-friendly materials into beautiful clothing is normally brands' first step toward achieving sustainability.

Allbirds is a shoe brand founded in 2016 in New Zealand, which just entered China two years ago.

Many influencers are fans of the brand, including Larry Page, the co-founder of Google, Dick Costolo, the former CEO of Twitter, actress Emma Watson, and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The brand chooses natural and sustainable wool from merino sheep as the main raw material, and it costs 60 percent less energy than producing typical synthetic shoes; it sources tree fiber involved from farms in South Africa, where minimize fertilizer and irrigate the land with rainfall, directly saving 95 percent water and cuts carbon footprint in half; sugarcane involved is sourced from southern Brazil, which relies on rainwater as well.

The brand received Forest Stewardship Council certification, approving that it sources materials that meet strict standards to protect forests, and the animals and people who depend on them.

During China Fashion Week, which was recently held, an increasing number of Chinese brands showed their practice of sustainability.

Demain presented the potential of plant-based regenerated fiber; Damowang formed recycled PET fabric into clothes, which cause 32 percent less carbon emission while producing comparing to normal PET fabric; I-La introduced new collection made from biodegradable natural materials; Chicco Mao called attention to the catastrophic impact of global warming on coastal ecology through design.

According to the report, although the number of mass market retailers, who make products from sustainable materials, stays low, it has increased fivefold in the last two years.

Yan Yan, the head of Responsible Supply Chain Association, talked about sustainable fashion at China Fashion Summit on March 27.

She said, "the realization of sustainable fashion counts on the transformation of the whole industry, involving designers' awareness, the selection of raw materials, manufacturing process, consumption orientation and where will these products end up with."

From waste to gold

Some brands even completed the challenge of turning waste into treasure.

Xi Lu, who received a master's degree as a student of Fashion Design and Society from Parsons School of Design in New York, just launched the first collection of her own brand, Shie Lyu, last October.

The designer has been shortlisted for several global fashion design awards.

The collection, which was born during the pandemic outbreak, was limited by the harmed supply chain. Xi completed 60 percent of her creation with recycled materials.

The sequin elements that appeared most often in the collection were in fact defective items that she had found in a factory. She chose to name the collection Body Buffers, "I think my anxiety was being absorbed by these materials and my creation."

Xi enjoys collecting materials and giving them a new life with design, as the materials themselves become her inspiration. During her study abroad, she even experimented with bacterial culture, spent over three months cultivating a batch of bio-leather.

Her journey of materials exploration didn't stop there, later she tried applying hooks for curtains, cleaning sponges, and even makeup sponges and powder puffs into designs, also transformed non-traditional materials such as recycled rubber, plexiglass or heat shrink tubing into textiles.

Another example from overseas, Rothy's, a brand established by Roth Martin from San Francisco, has recycled, sterilized, heated and milled nearly 77 million plastic bottles collected from landfills and transformed them into shoes. The business also covers ocean plastics. Till now, it has transformed over 200,000 pounds of ocean plastics into bags that are machine washable.

Also, it turns harmful algae collected from waterways into foam and shape it into strobel boards, making shoes sturdier and keeping the marine ecosystems well-balanced. The signature outsoles of Rothy's involve zero carbon but 35 percent natural and renewable materials, while insoles contain 30 percent plant-based oil and recycled rubber.

Success doesn't come easily

To turn the idea into reality, the company solved many technical difficulties and finally turned plastic into thread that's reasonably elastic and tough, narrowed the waste of raw material to 6 percent, and reduced environmental pollution during the whole production processes.

At the preparatory stage, Martin visited Maine, once known as "the center of shoe industry" in the United States, discovered 3D knitting technology as the perfect way to make miracle happen. In 2014, he traveled to China to find the possibility of mass production. He found a small place in Southern China, filled it with two machines and hired technicians to adjust and optimize the production.

In December 2015, the brand finally realized the mass production of flat shoes 100 percent made from recycled materials after three years of trying.

Ye Xiaowei, the former fashion editor of the magazine named Life Style and an influencer who consistently pushes the concept of sustainability, said in an earlier interview with BoF China, "Brands need to tell consumers a story about where does this product come from and what process did it go through before come to the market. The transparency in the supply chain and the story adds value to the products."

Circular Fashion

According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a 11-year-old British foundation that promotes the idea of a circular economy, the global fashion industry produces about 53 million tonnes of fiber every year, and over 70 percent of fiber ends up in landfills or on bonfires, only less than one percent is reused to make new clothes.

However, some are trying to make the number grow.

Cohen, introduced a direct-to-consumer line of upcycled garments in December 2019, made from their own deadstock. Patagonia produced around 10,000 jackets, sweaters and bags upcycled from old garments in November 2019. "The idea was to create a line that never ended up in a landfill," says on its official website.

Rothy's recently established an expert group of thought-leaders and scientists, seeking end-of-wear solutions to benefit the nature and the whole industry. It's running a pilot recycling program this year, which shows its determination to close the loop and achieve circularity within the next three years. As planned, it will be transforming recycled materials into new products and recycling the old products into new goods in 2022, and all factories of the brand will achieve zero-waste. What's more, the company is hoping to achieve circular production and reach a carbon-neutral status in 2023.